


don't go

by allgoodlions



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Blood, F/F, i'm contributing to the angst machine, oh my god i'm doing it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 02:17:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4504038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allgoodlions/pseuds/allgoodlions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But here’s Carmilla bleeding on the carpet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't go

Truth is, there’s a small part of Laura that had been – relieved when Carmilla ended it. Not… Not because she didn’t love – yeah, she figures _love_ is right, even if… if –

Anyway, it’s not that.

It’s only those handful of awful days when she’d thought Carmilla was dead. Like having a limb hacked off, only it twinges sometimes. Reaching for her Tardis mug with phantom fingers. Reaching for Carmilla and getting the gutpunch of her absence all over again.

Those days and that _feeling_ they– well, they left a mark.

It’s scary, caring for somebody like that. It’s scary realizing there’s more than just one way to die. Sure, a hungry anglerfish god can emerge from the bowels of the earth and chow down, but there are other ways of dying. Smaller ways. Your heart can die, Laura knows that well enough now. Something – some _one_ – can come along and pluck your heart right out of your chest. That’s bad. There’s the hollowed-out feeling that comes after. The sense that you’d fall all to pieces except all the scraps of yourself happen to be leaning together.

She doesn’t think she could do that again. She doesn’t think she could be that _way_ again. All hollow and hurting and falling. Yeah, it kind of feels like falling. Or drowning.

Made her uncomfortable, knowing Carmilla could do that to her. So, better heartsick and furious and Carmilla _alive_ than all that empty nothing.

But here’s Carmilla bleeding on the carpet.

Here’s Carmilla dying all over again, only it’s so much worse because Laura is watching it happen. Because Laura has her hand pressed against the hole in Carmilla’s chest and there’s blood bubbling around her fingers.

Mattie’s vanished and there’s a banging and shuffling and a few muted shouts. Laura wants to believe she’s raiding LaFontaine’s lab in search of some – hell, she doesn’t know. Some chemical or, or potion that’ll fix Carmilla. But she doesn’t even know what’s wrong. Is there poison in the arrowhead? And why isn’t Carmilla healing? She doesn’t know. She doesn’t _know_.

“Dammit, dammit,” Laura singsongs, all high and tight. “ _Damn_ you.”

“Sorry, Cupcake.”

Laura near jumps out of her skin.

Carmilla’s eyes are open, overbright and fighting to focus on Laura’s face above hers. Laura clenches her hand involuntarily, fingers digging into Carmilla’s skin, and Carmilla winces, a moan of pain hissing through her teeth. Teeth all tinted a kind of orangey red and slick with blood. A dark line of it trickles from the crease of her mouth, stark against the chalky pallor of her skin.

“Shut up.” Laura’s so angry and so frightened. “Don’t talk.”

“Don’t know why people say that,” Carmilla says, and her tone is kind of blithe and conversational, like _let’s have a pleasant chat while I bleed out on the Persian_. “In movies, it’s always ‘don’t speak’ or ‘save your strength’ or something dramatic and I never got that.”

“Carm, shut _up_.” Laura looks up and around, desperate for Mattie’s reappearance. She can’t do this. Not again. Not _ever_. She can’t watch this happen.

When did things get so messed up? She’ll be all alone and Carmilla will just – leave. _Don’t go._ She’d wanted to say that back when they broke up, only she didn’t. She’d hardly said anything at all and Carmilla had walked away.

_Why are you always leaving me?_

Laura doesn’t want their last moment to be like this.

 “I just think,” Carmilla acts like she hasn’t heard. “If you’re dying .. that’s when you ... have to say… say that you – that I…” Her voice goes faint and then dribbles off. Lost consciousness or --

Laura’s heart does a somersault

“No,” She shakes Carmilla hard. “Carm, _no_. You don’t get to do this to me. You wake up. Carm, _wake_ _up_.”

But there’s nothing, and Carmilla’s chest isn’t even moving. But then she doesn’t need to breathe… But what if – oh, _god,_ what if –

“Carmilla, open your eyes,” and it comes out all squeaky and small and wet, and, geez, she’s crying.

She knots a hand in Carmilla’s hair, leans down, and kisses her, hard. She catches Carmilla’s bottom lip between her teeth and bites down. There’s a gush of new, fresh blood in her mouth that mingles with what’s already there. And, yes, under all that, there’s the way Carmilla tastes, too, and god, she has missed that.

Carmilla doesn’t open her eyes again.

And then Mattie’s back, all frenzied activity, and that fragile moment pops like a soap bubble. If Mattie saw Laura kissing Carmilla, she doesn’t comment. The mild arch of her eyebrow says, yeah, she saw that.

Laura doesn’t much care.

She only hopes that _shut up_ isn’t the last thing Carmilla will ever hear.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't run this by my trusty birb nerd editor, but I know I probably should have. I just wanted to see what I could come up with on my own in a single evening. Just as an experiment.
> 
> I am also very aware that I am fueling the angst machine on which this entire fandom runs, but I'm trying it on for size. And I know full well that this little nothing of a fic will be inconsequential by Thursday.
> 
> And a companion piece from Carmilla's perspective: [_I hate to leave_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4509567)


End file.
